When Coroners Attack! Film at 11
by Christina K
Summary: It's a hostage situation in the morgue! Secrets revealed! Bad guys defeated! And all those other loose ends tied up. Post series


Post-series fic, so spoilers through everything. Written in an hour in IRC,  
with Tina egging me on. *points at Chicago* Her fault! All her fault!  
Thanks to the Horsechicks for beta'ing. I don't own any of these people, and   
neither does Kenneth Irons, no matter *how* hard he tries.  
  
And oh yeah, do not take seriously a'tall.   
  
When Coroners Attack! (Film at 11)  
by C. L. Kamnikar  
copyright 2002  
  
  
"Well!" Vicky Po, NYPD medical examiner and coroner, clapped her hands  
together joyfully, making the five people in the morgue all want to take a  
step back. Whenever Vic got that happy, something gross was usually going  
on. "I bet you all wonder why I asked you to be here today."   
  
"You're announcing your candidacy for President?" Jake smart-mouthed,  
leaning against a dissection table.   
  
"You just won Publisher's Clearinghouse, and you're going to share with your   
friends?" Danny suggested with a grin. "Lee and I could use the money with  
the baby coming and all..."   
  
"You're quitting this lousy job and moving to Bimini?" Sara offered.   
  
"You're going to confess that you're the real murderer?" Everyone *looked*  
at Gabriel, who shrugged. "What? It could happen."   
  
"As you can all guess... no. No, no, and no. I *knew* you wouldn't get it.  
No one takes the cliches seriously, even when they should. In fact, I  
counted on it!" Vicky suddenly whipped a .38 Special out of the back  
waistband, and backed away so she had Danny, Jake, Sara and Gabriel in her  
sights. The three cops and one appalled civilian all watched her with the  
deer-in-headlights expressions of those who can't believe a geek got the  
drop on them.   
  
"Vic, what are you--"   
  
"Po--"   
  
"Calm down, Dr. Po. There's no need for violence," Jake said, taking a step  
toward her, making calming motions with his hands. "Why don't you just give  
that to me--"   
  
"Shut up! Who are you? You're a rookie! Don't talk to me like I'm a  
lunatic!" Vicky shrieked, cocking the gun. Four people gulped audibly, and  
one held his breath. "It's got to stop! There's too much mystery, and it's  
completely unravelling my ability to cope with this job, not to mention  
reality as we know it! I have six years in this lab, and I. Want. Answers!  
Starting with: who are you kidding with that hair, McCartney? And that  
attitude? If you're a new cop, I'm Jennifer Lopez!"   
  
Vicky swung the gun on Sara. "And you! I thought we were friends! And you  
bring me dead bodies with knife and sword wounds, and tell me that they were  
dead when you got there! Do I *look* stupid?!"   
  
Danny blinked, then turned to Sara. "You know, Pez, she's got a point."   
  
"Et tu, Wu?"   
  
Jake frowned, hooking his fingers in his belt. "I'm going with Danny here,  
Pez. What's up with that?"   
  
"I thought I told you to shut it, McCartney! Especially since you still  
haven't come clean! If you're not going to confess, hush up!" Vicky then  
pointed the gun menacingly at Gabriel, who tried to curl up in his chair and  
become invisible. "And you. Geek Boy. What's up with the glove? What are you  
hiding?"   
  
"Hunh?" Gabriel tried to squish himself into a smaller ball, since he really  
didn't like being threatened by psychos with guns, and it didn't look like  
Pez was going to step up and stab her friend any time soon.   
  
"The leather glove you wear on only one hand! Do you think you're the  
reincarnation of Michael Jackson?" Vicky demanded.   
  
"Uh, Vic, he's not dead--" Pez said patiently.   
  
"Are you trying to tell a coroner who's dead and who isn't? Pony up, Hair  
boy!" Incensed at his refusal to strip, Vicky reached over and pulled the glove  
off Gabriel's fingers, to reveal -- the entwined symbol of the Witchblade!  
And a really cheesy knockoff stick-on tattoo of the Olympic Rings!   
  
"You!" Sara staggered back in shock. Jake and Danny looked merely puzzled.   
  
"Ugly scar, man. What's that about?"   
  
Gabriel's face morphed evilly, like something out of the Matrix, but without  
the sound effects, and then he spoke in a truly affected accent: "Alas, Miss  
Po. Not the reincarnation of the sterling Mr. Jackson. But the  
reincarnation of the iron Kenneth Irons!"   
  
Suddenly, out of nowhere (well, okay, from the bank of overhanging lights,  
where he'd been lurking like the huge loser he is), Ian jumped down and hit  
Gabriel right between the shoulder blades, smacking him into the floor with  
way too much melodrama.   
  
Jake and Danny stood there and blinked again, rather overwhelmed, then  
remembered that they were cops, and pulled their pieces, training them on  
Ian, who sneered at them, and also Vicky, who looked apoplectic.   
  
Meanwhile, Sara raised an eyebrow, had a flashback, had a flash-forward,  
figured out a course of action, and wondered if she should get another hole  
pierced in her ears.   
  
"No one is answering my questions! So what if he's Kenneth Irons, why was he  
wearing the stupid glove!"   
  
Ian was staring at Sara, though he spoke to Vicki. "Sweet lady, I fear  
that only the Divine Sara may answer your prayers. Tell us, mi dama,  
how you could possibly miss the changes in your angel-faced friend?"   
  
"Hey!" Sounding like himself again, Gabriel tried to rear up and nearly  
dislodged Ian, who kept his balance like he was on a jack-in-the-box lid.  
"What changes? What the hell is going on?"   
  
"You're possessed," Sara sighed. "I should've known."   
  
"You really should have, Sara." The fruity voice was back, only it was less  
impressive with Gabriel's face pressed into the floor.   
  
"Shut up, Irons." Sara yawned.   
  
"Okay, I'm with Vicky now," Danny said, moving to stand next to her. "I want  
some answers, and I want them now! Or the next person to freak me out gets  
shot or kicked in the face!"   
  
"Fine." Sara said, long-sufferingly. "Danny, you used to be dead. Vicky? You  
used to have a drinking problem, and I don't know what happened with that,  
'cause you're fine now, and it's definitely not because of any rips in the  
space -time continuum. Jake? No one's buying the innocent act. Drop it,  
it's old. He works for the FBI, on a taskforce trying to bring down the  
White Bulls, who are probably a lot harder to find since they're not  
currently stalking me because of Irons' orders. And this is Ian, he's just a  
freak. Get off of Gabriel, will you? Jeez."   
  
"And you know all this-- how?" Danny asked skeptically.   
  
"Well, I'd think the freak thing was obvious--"   
  
"No, the rest of it, Pez. C'mon, give!"   
  
"What he said," Jake agreed, looking put out that no one was buying his  
innocent-young-schmuck routine. Being thought just a schmuck was a lot  
worse, even if it *was* in a good cause.   
  
Suddenly there was a noise like someone mixing silverware in the blender,  
and then Sara was holding a big ol' sword coming out of a gauntlet on her fist.   
  
"Coooooool," Jake said, temporarily forgetting he wasn't a surfer anymore,  
and reverting to his roots.   
  
"Whoa," Danny said quietly, trying to hide being weirded out behind being  
monosyllabic.   
  
"What the hell...? *That's* what cut those guys up!" Vicky exclaimed in glee  
as Danny gaped. "Yes! I knew you knew what was going on!"   
  
"Finish him, Sara," Ian purred, rubbing his hands together and looming over  
the still-kneeling Gabriel, whose face was morphing back and forth from evil  
joy to total bewilderment. "The Witchblade commands it. Despite the fact  
that I loathe him, and love him, and will naturally hate you for it.You will  
never be free of him until---"   
  
*WHONK*   
  
Ian fell like a sack of dark-garbed cement from the blow to the back of his head,  
and Sara breathed a sigh of relief. "Man, I've been wanting to do that for  
two lifetimes."   
  
She turned to the crouched Gabriel/Irons combination. "Right. Irons? You  
suck. And you're history. You have three seconds to vacate the premises -  
and my friend - for whatever skeezy afterlife is waiting for you, before I  
dust you. Figuratively speaking."   
  
"You can't kill me with the Blade, Sara. I already proved that," Irons told  
her smugly.   
  
"No, but I can look away while Vicky shoots you, then claim that it was  
accidental. And that way, when he wakes up, Ian will be pissed at her and  
not me, this time." Sara looked thoughtful. "And then maybe he'll stalk  
someone else. Cool."   
  
"Ms. Po---" Irons tried to look appealing, and only succeeded in resembling  
Charles Manson wearing the face of a Backstreet Boy.   
  
"Shut up. I don't like your attitude."   
  
"One."   
  
"Pez, I don't think this is a good idea-- think of the paperwork."   
  
"I don't know, McCartney. If it gets rid of most of the weirdness, it might  
be worth it----"   
  
"Two."   
  
"Sara, please - consider the fate of your friend, young Gabriel--"   
  
"He had a good life. I'm sure he'll be reincarnated as something nice."   
  
"Dude, you've got options. There's a lot of corpses in here, pick one...."   
  
"Three!"   
  
As Vicky raised her gun and sighted along the barrel, Gabriel/Irons made a  
shrieking, squeaky noise, similar to the death throes of a mouse caught in a  
Cuisinart, and then Gabriel did a passable imitation of St.Vitus's Dance.  
When the seizures stopped, he had a dazed smile on his face. "Whoa."   
  
Sara smiled back, and the blade suddenly retracted into the Gauntlet, much  
to Danny and Jake's fascination. "Gabriel?"   
  
"Sara?" He blinked endearingly, looking as fuzzy and harmless as Thumper.   
  
"How are you feeling?"   
  
"Fine. Fine. I'm ... good. Just fine."   
  
Sara thought about that, tilted her head, then hit him across the jaw with  
the Witchblade. HARD. Because *no one* could come out of having Kenneth  
Irons in their head feeling 'fine.' Gabriel's eyes rolled up until the  
whites showed, and he went down like another sack of wet cement-- then was  
enveloped in a silvery light that rose, hovered over him, gave a Bronx cheer  
in Sara's direction, and headed for the nearest air shaft.   
  
Sara's eyes narrowed. "Unh-uh. You don't get off that easy, Irons." Reaching  
out with her Gauntleted hand, she *grabbed* the silvery light-mist-fog-junk,  
which immediately began to squeal. Ignoring this, she pulled it over to one  
of Vicky's specimen jars, stuck it in there, and screwed on the top. It  
began to bang itself against the walls, then huddled in a sullen, bruised  
and whimpering mass of glowing fog on the bottom of the jar.   
  
"Dad never did buy me those sea monkeys I wanted...." Sara smiled at the  
sulking spirit-light happily.   
  
"Owwwwwwww...." groaned one of the masses on the floor.   
  
"Sorry, Gabriel. How do you feel?"   
  
"Like crap, how do you think? Thanks for the exorcism."   
  
"No problem."   
  
"Are either of you guys following this any more?" Jake whispered to Danny  
and Vicky.   
  
Danny shrugged. "Evil badness defeated. What do you think, Vic?"   
  
"Good call. And don't talk to me, Fed Boy. I'm still mad about you  
pretending to be a rookie. I hate being left out of the loop."   
  
Ian suddenly sprang straight up, regaining consciousness in a ninja  
nanosecond, his eyes wild. "What?" Sara pointed to the jar. "How?" She held  
up the Blade. "Why?"   
  
"Why do you think? He was pissing me off. If he's not gonna stay dead, he  
should stay out of my hair." She snorted. "Not unlike someone else I can  
mention."   
  
"Ahhh. I see." Ian looked contemplative, which bore a strong resemblance to  
anyone else being stoned out of their mind. "Congratulations, my lady. If  
you'll give me the jar--"   
  
"No WAY. Ian. I'm gonna say this once: Get over it. Get over your Oedipus  
complex, your Galahad syndrome, your lack of childhood, your total  
cluelessness about real life, and while you're at it, get over me. *Please.*  
You're creeping me out, Norman."   
  
"How--"   
  
"I'm thinking a world cruise, a good therapist, a lot of Peyote, possibly  
some windsurfing. Talk to Jake about that part of it. As far as you're  
concerned, though, this jar does not exist."   
  
"You can't--" He got to his feet to loom, then found all the guns trained  
on him.   
  
"I so can. Me and three police specials pointed at your head say so. Don't  
make me hit you again, Nottingham."   
  
Ian brooded for a moment, much like Quasimodo with a hangover and a  
lobotomy, then sighed. "Can we do lunch? After I get back?"   
  
Sara considered, then shook her head. "Maybe coffee." Especially since it's  
the non-relationship drink of choice, she thought.   
  
"I hear that's good."   
  
"It really is." Sara smiled brightly. "Say good-bye, Ian."   
  
"Farewell, my fair one... until we meet again... If not in this life, then  
in the next...." Ian sort of wafted out the door as everyone stared after  
him, and the little light tried to find a way out of the lid of the jar.  
Then they all breathed noticeably easier.   
  
"What a freak," Vicky muttered. "A *built* freak, but still a freak."   
  
"Told you."   
  
"So is that... everything?" Danny asked tentatively. "Gabriel was  
possessed-- and that little mark's gone, I'm gonna assume that's good--  
Jake's a undercover Fed. Nottingham is a huge freak, and Sara--"   
  
"And Sara's got a mondo cool accessory. Can I borrow that for my next date,  
Pez?" Vicky asked, holstering her gun.   
  
"Sure. If you don't mind slaughtering demons after the movie. Thanks for  
your help in straightening all this out."   
  
Danny did a double-take. "What? You set this up?"   
  
"Well, duh, to quote Buffy. As a Chosen One, I couldn't reveal the truth  
unless everyone I loved was in danger, and since none of the bad guys I've  
met so far were good enough to pull that off, I figured I had to do it  
myself." Sara rolled her eyes. "Thank God that's over. Gabriel, honey, get  
off the floor, you're getting dusty."   
  
"Will you buy me a beer? I was possessed. I deserve sympathy." He batted his  
eyelashes at her and grinned, already mostly recovered.   
  
"*I'll* buy you a beer," Vicky said decisively. "Why didn't you tell me he  
was so cute, Pez?"   
  
"It's not the kind of thing I feel comfortable noticing. Otherwise I'd have  
to jump too many of my acquaintances, and some of them are related." Sara  
checked her watch. "You guys go on to the bar. I've got an errand to run,  
Conchobar and I will catch up," she said as she breezed out the door.   
  
"Conchobar?" Vicky asked, helping Gabriel to his feet, and doing a bit of  
eye-flirting with him as he checked her out.   
  
"Coma Man. I'm guessing she went to pull him out of unconsciousness. After a  
possession, that should be a piece of cake for her," Gabriel said. Turning  
to Jake, he grinned. "Dude. You're FBI? Can I see your badge? And do you  
know where I can get some J. Edgar Hoover souvenirs?"   
  
"Nobody tells me anything," Vicky sighed. "You two knew about this guy of  
hers, hunh?" she asked, glaring at Sara's partners.   
  
"Kinda."   
  
"Sorta."   
  
"So, dish. I'll drive. I want the 411 on this Con guy before we get to the  
bar, or I'm pulling out the gun again."   
  
Danny frowned. "Hey. She never explained the Chosen One thing. I can't  
believe we let her skate on that!"   
  
Gabriel opened the door for Vicky, and secretly grinned at the possibilities  
in dating an older woman who *wasn't* a force for cosmic weirdness. "No big.  
I'll explain on the way to the bar. That way we won't have to waste time  
thinking about it again until we're drunk enough to deal."   
  
"Um, what are we gonna do with the Creepy Tinkerbell from Hell?" Jake asked,  
gesturing to the jar.   
  
Danny smiled evilly. "I have an idea."   
  
Danny's niece Meija loved her new nightlight; it was such a comfort, after   
everything she'd been through. It didn't need to be fed, or anything, but it always  
reacted when she played her *NSync CD's, going practically nuts with joy.   
  
And they all lived   
(say it with me)  
Happily  
Ever  
Almost  
After  
(At least until they had to go after Dante and his goons again, but that's another story.)   
  
- the end (kinda) - 


End file.
